Behind Black Walls, Are Even Blacker Souls
by chocolatetater-tot
Summary: They were once normal people, trying to have a normal life. Everything seemed manageable. Who would have thought it would all go spiraling out of control because of one person's actions?... Well, maybe they weren't so normal to after all.


Alright, first Twisted Metal story. I was thinking...maybe making like short stories for some of the characters from TM: Black. My only warning is STRONG LANGUAGE!!!! I don't want to make it M just cause there's a few 'f' bombs, but I will warn.

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In here, it's easy for a man to lose track of time. Days turn into weeks, weeks into years, and years into an oblivion of feared memories. The lights are dimmed low and flicker through dust tainted air, and the smell is enough to make anyone lose their appetite. Not like I have one. The food is bland and dry, too boring for even the simplest of men. In the distance, or in some cases, in the room next to your's, the sounds of wails and groans fill the halls with an echoing misery. All I can do was sit and listen to their screams, and eventually hope to block them out. Sometimes, not even all of the medication in the world was enough to drain out those terrible cries. It's hardly ever any words, just noises. Although, I have heard several 'fucks' and 'damn its' being dropped, but they usually just fade into more incoherent babble. It was enough to make my split mind crack even more.

What was worse, is that those images from long ago, constantly replay through my thought process, like some sort of fucked up mind game. Gun fire. Rain. Nightfall. Shouts. Blood. Death. It would ultimately lead right into the picture of that man's face. With those beady, soulless eyes, and that toothy grin that burned a scar permanently into my mind. Oh God, his _face_. Why can't it just go the fuck away. Poor Benny…this shoulda never have happened. I shouldn't be in here with all of these whack attacks and Benny should still be alive. But unfortunately, reality was sour and painful, and Benny was dead and I was trapped in here. Lost in time. Surrounded by concrete walls in a hellish jungle.

The only window in my cushioned room was a small, rectangular slit in the wall, that emitted dingy sunlight. Just because I had a window didn't mean I knew what time it was. It was usually hazy outside, so grey that even a weatherman couldn't tell us if it was early morning or late afternoon. It was like God didn't even want this place happy, or better yet, to _look_ happy. Nothing but anguish from the halls, from the window, and from my mind. I grew accustomed to this habitat though. After all, it was my home. Blackfield Asylum, located in the middle of nowhere, population: the insane. They couldn't have been anymore obvious with their need to _really_ want freaks away from civilization. But it was that toothy grinned man's fault that I'm in here. He made Benny die, and my mind bend and twist until it split in two. If I could only find that man…he'd get what he deserved.

What kind of advisor to the Vietnamese tortures his own colleagues? A fucked up one. He needs to be in this room, in my corner, eating my boring food, and sleeping in my springy bed.

I laid my head back on the padded wall with my legs out in front of me. My arms were slack at my sides and my eyes stared distantly, deep in thought. I didn't need the sun to know what time it was; all I needed was an all too familiar muffled scream from the room next to mine to know that it was early morning, probably around eight. Two months ago, I got a new neighbor. He was a wild one. Always screaming like he had a piece of cloth rammed into his throat. I still couldn't tell if his throaty shouting was only muffled because of the walls or because of something different. When I am allowed to go down to the recreation hall, I always attempted to find my new neighbor, but none of the faces looked like they'd be the owner to those choked up cries. So, all in all, that beating on the walls and insane screaming meant that it was breakfast time, and also, time for everyone's medication.

I welcomed my medication, it helped dull my senses and ease the mental pain, but it wasn't enough to _eliminate_ the pain.

From outside my thick, steel door was a female's voice. It sounded nerved and rather impatient. Impatience. That was something that a nurse or aid here did _not_ want to possess. You piss off the wrong person and you may find yourself missing an ear or an eye, and if you're lucky, you'll just get a target on your head from one of the serial killer patients.

"Alright, Mr. Cutcheon, come to the door with your hands behind your back and put them next to the opening," the voice ordered. It was hard to hear over 'Mr. Cutcheon's' screaming. He was absolutely losing it now. If you were to take a long, sharpened stick and ram it right into the ass of a sleeping bear or lion, its reaction would be less terrifying than that of Mr. Cutcheon's. Why was he yelling _so_ damn loud? I had to know. I needed an answer to my lack of already lacking sleep. He was no good neighbor. You could find him howling and spazzing out about every four hours. Sometimes, even more than that. But at eight o' clock A.M. is when it is the loudest and most elongated. But in fairness, aside from his distressed bellowing, he was awfully quiet and mindful.

"Come to the door, now, Mr. Cutcheon, if you want your pain killers." With that almost inaudible sentence being said, the pained screaming died down slightly, but only slightly.

It's funny, I've somehow manage to start to _understand _Mr. Cutcheon. Like, he wasn't just shouting sounds and curses, but he was actually saying things with those strangled words. I could sometimes hear him yelling something about a doctor and what he did to his face. Like I would know what that meant. I laid low, tried to keep to myself. I'm also probably Blackfield's longest held patient. So you start to learn routines after being locked up for nearly 30 years. I was young and violent when I first entered Blackfield, only 20, and Mr. Cutcheon needs to start learning as well. I don't know how much more my aching mind can take of it.

There was a loud beating on my steel door. I followed the noise with my uncaring eyes and watched the opening slide open. Behind the small sliding door was nurse Robert's face. He was a friendly black guy, with a welcoming smile. But I knew behind those blissful eyes, was a man ready to quit his crazy job and apply somewhere more sane.

"Good morning, Mr. Evers," he greeted with a smile.

I looked his way and stared, "Hello, Robert." I was feeling oddly abnormal today, actually willing to show some signs of acknowledgement.

"O.K., you already know the routine, so if you'd like to come on over to the door with your hands behind your back, we'll see to it you get your meal and meds swiftly!"

I liked Robert. He never looked like he was staring. I was going to miss him when he quit.

I brought myself up, with an indifferent grace and paced over to the door. Following orders I gave him my wrists, where he cuffed them and told me to lay face-down on my bed. I did as I was told and soon found myself staring at my old sheets. I could hear three aids walking in, one of which was Robert with my tray of food. The other two were mainly there for safety precautions, just in case I decided to unleash my rage on one of them. I would probably find myself with two stun guns in my back, followed by their weight crushing down on me. How would I know this? Because I've done it before. On the mornings where I'm feeling extra spiteful and troubled, and one of them gives me that _look_ that guy gave me with those soulless eyes, I'd be sprinting at them with nothing but killing on my mind. Then I'd be in isolation for a week and under heavy surveillance. But that was only on a rare occasion. I've learned my lesson, but they need too as well.

Mr. Cutcheon's wailing had suddenly ended and it was now awkwardly quiet.

"Be sure not to make any sudden movements, Charles, we wouldn't want today to be a bad day." Robert stated, with his usual happy tone.

I let the comment go unnoticed. "Why does he scream?" I asked, keeping my face down. I heard Robert pause briefly before placing the tray on the small table at the foot of my bed.

"Why does who scream?"

I gestured towards the neighbor's sharing wall. "Mr. Cutcheon. Every morning he screams like he's being stabbed to death. Why?"

It was like the other two aids weren't even in the room, they were just so cautious and quiet. Robert cleared his throat, "Well," I could tell he wanted to tell me…but him hesitating meant that he probably wasn't going to. "I can't reveal other patients records to you."

"Robert…" I uttered, "you're not revealing records to me, you're just telling me why I keep getting woken up in the middle of the night. He's adding on to my night terrors."

He sighed, so I knew he was softening up. "He's in a lot of pain all of the time. Whenever his pain killers start to wear off, the screaming starts again."

"He's been screaming for two months, what could possibly be hurting for that long?"

"If you didn't have a face, you'd be screaming too," he replied. But I couldn't say anything back. Didn't have a face? What was _that _supposed to mean. I pondered this as they closed the door and removed my handcuffs from the outside.

Before they closed the little window, I heard Robert say, "Be sure you behave just as well as you did before, Charles. You've got a therapy session scheduled for today and it's a new doctor. Put on your best smile for her." The window closed, leaving me to think about my fairly new neighbor, 'No-Face', and what therapy would bring for the day. A new doctor? Now that I thought about it, I do remember that my last therapist labeled me as a loss cause. I guess I'm glad someone didn't see it that way. I had to admit, being able to talk to someone, even if it was about my terrifying past, I still liked having someone to talk to. You get lonely in here.

I grabbed the silver tray from the little table. Even though I wasn't hungry, a man's gotta eat. I took my usual seat up against the padded wall near the far corner and watched the blinking red light on the intrusive security camera. Its glazed over eye gawked at me invasively. Sometimes I wondered what the eyes behind the camera thought of me. Did they think I was crazy like the asylum said I was, or were they merely just observing me like some sort of caged animal. Either way, I was constantly being watched with no sense of privacy. You take a shit in here and the whole time someone is watching. I heard about this one nut who stripped down butt naked and just started dancing before the camera like there was no tomorrow. He got shoved in solitary for a week and was stuck eating bologna sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not too bad, but the entire time he was in a stray jacket with nothing in all of the 6x6 space he had. No pillow. No blanket. No bed. Nothing. Funny thing is, the guy was 6'4''.

All I could do was shrug at the camera and snatch my medication from the tray. I've been doing this for so long that they know I'll take my meds. After all, without them, those memories and paranoia's come back. Come back like a God damn fucking Vietnamese with guns a blazin'. And if I didn't take the meds, they would eventually figure it out and I'd be finding myself with Mr. Naked-Pants and all his glory.

I washed my medication down with the warm water they provided me. Warm water…it made my mouth _dry_. That thought had me laughing mentally. Even their water was miserable.

As I sat there, drinking down the flat water, a very haunting thought occurred to me. What if that devilish Vietnamese advisor was watching me with his callous eyes within the mechanics of the camera? That wasn't very likely…but what if he was laughing at my state and what he did to my mind?

My heart began to thud behind my chest and I started to shift recklessly. That's when the images returned.

Flashes of Benny and I in that hole, that blood-stained knife, and that man's menacing laugh coming from the opening of the hole. I held my head (well, Benny's head) tight with the tips of my fingers and brought it down into my arms. A headache that could bring down King Kong began to erupt within the chambers of my shattered mind. My nose began to burn with the smell of…flesh? I looked down towards the tray and was horrified with what I saw. On the tray were human scraps. Fingers, ears, tongues. I yelled out and flung the tray from my lap, spilling the contents onto the floor. Seeing those things brought back mild cravings… Looking around for the closest projectile, I reached for the end table.

"What do you want from me?!" I hollered through a clenched jaw, raising the table up over my head. Using my full strength, I catapulted the table at the camera, shattering the wooden table into splintered bits, and leaving the camera sparking as it hung from two wires.

I was furious. How'd he find me, and why does he find torture so fucking amusing? I trembled all over as I reached for another object. Oh no, I wasn't done. I threw anything I could find in my small confines. The pillow, the plastic cup, the blanket, anything that might be able to completely remove that pest from the wall. As my hands landed on the sides of the tray, the steel door had swung open and in came running in four burly aids, Robert being one of them. Before I could lob the tray of entrails, or defend myself for that matter, I was tackled to the floor, nothing but pure rage emitting from me. Surely they saw what the tray had on it! How could they not see it? It left drops of blood on the already stained floor.

While three of them slammed my face closer to the floor, attempting to keep me restrained, Robert shook his head at me as he pulled out a syringe.

"I'm disappointed, Charles. You were off to a good start today." Robert exclaimed. I struggled and squirmed, baring my teeth. I watched Robert prepare the syringe, this only made me fight more.

"No!! He's laughing at me! He's the one that caused this!" I yelled.

The men grunted as I continued to struggle. "Who's laughing at you?" He inquired as I felt the needle poke through the skin on my arm. Bastard. He didn't have to sedate me.

I growled, "Look what he put on my tray, you blind idiots! There's even blood on the floor!" I could feel myself tense as I sensed their probing stares. Stop staring at _me_. Look at the damn _fingers_.

"Mr. Evers, I brought you that tray. Nothing but fruit, toast, and some granola." Robert confirmed.

I moved my head to view the tray a foot from my face. He was right. It had been nothing but apples, toast, and even the granola bar sat teasingly under the broken camera. I felt numb. Drowsy. My mind had tricked me again.

"See?" I could hear that my outburst had caused other uproars throughout the wing. How embarrassing. I was the calm one, the one who minded my own damn business. The sedation was already rushing to my head and all I could do was grumble.

"Now you're back to square one, again."

"That's not fair. I didn't hurt anyone." I argued. The three men's weight pushed harder as I heard the clicking of the cuffs. I could fight them if I had really wanted too, but this honestly didn't concern them, so there was no need for it.

"No, but you had an unprovoked tantrum, and in the process, broke a camera. For that, your privileges are stripped." Robert's voice was calm but it contained disappointment. "The point is, that camera could have been a person."

"But it wasn't," I said, but it came out more like 'but ish wasn' thanks to the slurring of my words. "It's not up for debate," as he said this, I was lifted up off the floor, completely dead weight. My staid expression intensified as I lowered my head. "We'll see what the big dogs have to say."

Whatever. Those bastards like to torture the patients anyways, provoked or not. They like seeing the crazy get crazier. I can kiss my bed and everything else 'goodbye'; I would do it to my table, but I already broke that.

So, for the next few hours, before my therapy session, I sat restrained to a chair with my head strapped back. Thankfully, they let my keep Benny with me. I don't like it when they try to take my helmet from me. Last time they tried that, one of their employees left with a broken face, even when I was partially sedated. Before that, a shattered jaw. Before that, missing eyes. Before that, they had managed to take it off, but afterwards I threw a fit for three days, injuring four more of their employees. Before that, one had a broken neck. And before _that_, four men lay dead. There had only been six attempts in 30 years, and each time, someone got hurt, or worse. So, the smart ones running the place finally decided to keep the peace and let me keep Benny with me, after all, it's not like it's hurting anyone, and I'll cooperate if they respect my needs. It's a truce in a way.

Then the wailing started again. _Again_. My head throbbed. How inconvenient. The only really bad thing Mr. Cutcheon does is hoot and holler, but it's so fucking _loud._

I thought I could make out, "My face!" I dwelled on this. No-face, eh? If that was truly the case, I wondered what he looked like. Honestly, nothing would surprise me. Everyone in this wing was considered highly dangerous and were ranked pretty far up the psychotic scale. Not only that, but we had some weird ass ugly bastards in some of these wards. But all of them all had massacred people before they lived this life of solitary and isolation. We all didn't really have names, only nicknames. And me? I've noticed some of the nurses and aids refer to me as Mr. Grimm. Robert doesn't though, he's nice unlike most of the other ones that want a knife in their throats. Why Mr. Grimm? Because my 'helmet', is really the skull of my friend, Benny. It's apart of me now, it doesn't come off. It's how I apologize to Benny for what that man made me do to him…

More screams of pain, but this time, they were accompanied with others' yells. They all emitted their share of complaints and curses. We were all like dogs in a kennel. One dog barks and it's like the start of a contest. Which ever dog could be the most obnoxious, wins. I usually never participated. It was pointless.

Sitting like this was ungodly boring. I gawked at the broken camera. They said they would install a new one during my meeting with the therapist. But for the time being, a nurse would peep in on me through that sliding opening in the door, just to make sure I was behaving. Wasn't like I could move much anyways…bastards are treating me like some sort of mummy.

I suddenly heard a loud knock on the heavy, steel door. My eyes trailed across the walls until they landed on the door just in time for two nurses to walk in.

"It's time for your therapy, Mr. Evers."


End file.
